My foreign accent is affecting my business in USA. What is the most effective way to reduce my accent?

Answer 1

Take a speech class. There are classes that help lessen accents. Check with your local college communication / speech therapy department.

Answer 2

I guess it depends on the type of accent that you have! :o)

Most Americans anunciate (basically, say the whole word, don't mumble or skip letters) so that would be the first step. Learn to speak the words you will most often use in your business so you may communicate clearly. Don't roll your r's, and make sure you understand how to say words in English. For example, envelope is pronounced en-vell-ope not in-bell-ope. There the 'v' has a totally different sound than 'b'. Sorry, I can't be too much help without knowing what your accent is!

Hope I helped some!

Answer 3

Check out an English teaching method called Jazz chants...it will seem silly if you're an adult but when you're alone, you could practice the silly, rap like pronunciations that are catchy and will help to get rid of accents.

They are silly little statements that you probably would never use in real company but it teaches how Native English Speakers put sentences together and which words to emphasize and how to pronounce them...its like talk singing.

GLAD YOU'RE BACK, JACK!
WHERE YOU BEEN, BEN?

Younger ESL students LOVE it and you might too. Its better to do it with a native English Speaker...gives you something to laugh at and pronunciation is always better with a little laughter.

Personally, I think lightening up helps and finding lots of opportunity to speak English with NES's...repeat sentences you hear them say.

Some people suggest tape recording yourself and see if you sound like your model...all that stuff works with patience and time.

It is funny that Americans love some accents and despise others...you're lucky if you have a French, German or Italian accent and unlucky if you have a strong Middle Eastern or Asian one. Go figure!

Reading other people's responses gives me lots of ideas...

There is a book called "Dangerous English" and it helps people to either lose their accent or avoid certain words that they can not pronounce correctly...example...Sheets with a long e sound is not prounounced with a short i sound or you will get a swear word and people will think you are rude and perhaps laugh at you behind your back...see if "Dangerous English" is still in print to see if you are mispronouncing a 'dangerous' word. Every non-native English speaker has some words they can't say clearly and some of them can be very dangerous.

Answer 4

I have used a pronunciation course with my ESL students that I really like. It's designed to be a self-study course, so you can do it at home on your own. It's called "Pronunciation for Success". It has 31 lessons, which means if you did one per day it would take about a month. It's available for sale at www.eslvideos.com.

Jazz chants are also effective, but I find them a little silly, so it depends on your style.
Dangerous English is about taboo words. It can help you to avoid certain words that sound like swear words, but it's not an overall pronunciation course.

Answer 5

British English, that's a 'overseas accessory' to me, is totally the best of a few thing, except in its maximum crude dialects (and that i might want to assert a similar and worse about the crude dialects of my personal American accessory). The French females are brilliant though, certain. yet also, i have stumbled on the Dutch accessory to be fairly exciting. and that i ensue to in hardship-free words like the German accessory myself. Heidi Klum... rrrraow.

Answer 6

Maybe you can start by mimicking American accent and trying on American friends to see if it effective in reducing your native accent.
That is all I can think of.

Answer 7

I have one and people love it.